Worcester labor group seeks vote on city's form of government

Friday

Jul 18, 2014 at 11:10 PMJul 18, 2014 at 11:29 PM

By Winston W. Wiley TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

WORCESTER — While not all the social, economic and development priorities of the 14 organizations that make up the Worcester Community Labor Coalition are aligned, a majority of the coalition's members agree on one thing: "Let the people vote."

To that end, the group is asking the City Council to start the public hearing process to discuss whether the city should change its form of government. The group wants the hearings to start in early September and have the council vote afterward on whether to hold an election.

The move comes as the city is in the midst of hiring a new city manager and coalition members said Friday that the public process for considering whether the city should be run by a city manager or a strong mayor should unfold simultaneously.

"The Worcester Community-Labor Coalition has no intention of delaying the current city manager hiring process," NAACP representative to the coalition, Leonard P. Cooper, said Friday, a day after an internal NAACP memo indicated the opposite.

"We fully believe that Worcester must fill the upcoming vacancy. There should be a parallel process of letting the voters' debate and decide Worcester's form of government through public hearings and an election while the process to choose a new city manager continues."

The group believes it has the backing of the electorate following a recent poll commissioned by the coalition that found 90 percent of likely voters favor public hearings and a vote to settle the charter question.

Of the 400 residents polled, 39 percent said the city should change to a strong mayor form of government, and 43 percent felt a city manager should remain the city's chief executive. The poll had a 4.86 percent margin of error, which means residents are statistically equally divided on the issue.

"Why does this question keep coming up?" Jim Turner, a coalition member and part of the Worcester Carpenters Union, said in a coalition news release. "Why do we as a city struggle so much with making decisions. Let's stop calling ourselves the second largest city in New England if we're not going to act like it. I see pros and cons on both sides of this debate, but I'm 100 percent clear that it's time we finally made a decision."

Frank Kartheiser, lead organizer for Worcester Interfaith and a founding member of the coalition, said as coalition members discussed their various priorities for the communities they serve, the issue of charter change continually surfaced.

"This charter thing has been background noise for awhile — I think it was maybe City Manager Mike O'Brien leaving office that brought it to the forefront a little more," he said.

Mr. O'Brien resigned in January to take a job in the private sector. He was succeeded by Edward M. Augustus Jr., whose nine-month contract expires Oct. 3, when he plans to return to his position at the College of the Holy Cross.

Mr. Cooper said the coalition is not taking a position on what form of government the city should have, but just believes it is time to get the public involved.

"These are people who felt that at the least it's time for a dialogue, and I don't think there is going to be a big opposition to a dialogue," he said.

Mayor Joseph M. Petty said Thursday he has no problem with having a community dialogue. The coalition plans to take its request to the council floor on Tuesday.

Former city councilor Dennis Irish, while not part of the coalition, said there has for sometime existed broad-based support for considering changing the city's form of government.

He was critical of the current city-manager run system known as Plan E as confusing, inefficient and lacking accountability, but agreed the issue should be decided by the citizenry. "Let's let the people decide," he said.

This would not be the first time the public has confronted the issue. Several efforts have been made over the years to replace the council-manager government, which has been in place since 1950, but all fell by the wayside. The most recent effort was in 1992 when voters defeated a nonbinding referendum that called for replacing the city manager with an elected mayor.